The Racial Elevator Speech: How Multiracial Individuals Respond to Racial Identity Inquiries

Abstract

Scholars have increasingly acknowledged that race is composed of multiple dimensions and that these dimensions do not always match. For example, an individual’s sense of personal identity can differ from the race they mark on surveys and/or how others interpret their racial identity based on appearance. The potential for racial mismatch is even greater for multiracial individuals, who are commonly asked racial identity inquiries by others wanting to know their racial background. In this article, I focus on multiracial individuals’ responses to racial identity inquiries to examine how these instances of expressed race may “mismatch” their internal race. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 multiracial young adults, I find that despite the wide range of identity options that multiracial Americans are presumed to have, participants typically responded to inquiries about race with consistent scripts that did not necessarily align with their personal identities. I refer to these scripts as “racial elevator speeches,” and discuss how they are primarily constructed not to express personal identity but to meet the expectations of others and mitigate the microaggressive nature of these questions. However, by constructing racial elevator speeches designed to be legible to others, individuals’ scripts inadvertently reify U.S. racial structures.

Keywords

multiraciality mixed race identity racial mismatch microaggressions

Today, multiracial individuals in the United States appear to have more identity choices than ever, evidenced by the wide range of identity approaches employed by multiracials (Khanna 2011a; Renn 2004; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008); increasing public awareness of “multiracial” as an identity (DaCosta 2007); and more individuals who identify as bi/multiracial relative to previous generations, with a 276 percent increase between 2010 and 2020 alone (Jones and Bullock 2013; Jones et al. 2021; Korgen 1998). Yet the legacy of constrictive practices such as the one-drop rule persists, limiting multiracial individuals’ identity choices in practice (Gullickson and Morning 2011; Khanna 2010). Increased choice and persisting limitations coexist in part because race consists of multiple dimensions, from an individual’s personal sense of identity to how they are perceived by others, and that these dimensions may “mismatch” (Roth 2010). Distinctions between dimensions of race are especially clear in groups where mismatch is more likely to occur, such as among Latinxs in the United States (López et al. 2018; Roth 2010). These studies consider cases of racial mismatch that arise from others’ (mis)interpretations of a multiracial person’s race. However, given the potential choice and agency that multiracials are presumed to have today, are there cases in which multiracial individuals create mismatches themselves? If so, what guides these decisions and how is mismatch employed in day-to-day interactions?

In this study, I focus on the case of racial identity inquiries, a common experience for multiracial individuals, to argue that expressed race in these contexts mirrors racial norms, rather than personal identity. Coined by Alisia G. T. T. Tran and colleagues (2016), racial identity inquiries are “queries directed toward multiracial individuals as others attempt to determine their racial background” (p. 26). Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, I analyzed multiracial individuals’ responses to these queries, considering them a form of “expressed race” (Roth 2010). Contrary to expectations that racial identity expression varies by situation, 26 out of 30 multiracial individuals reported using relatively consistent scripts they crafted to meet expectations of others. I refer to these scripts as “racial elevator speeches” and found they did not necessarily reflect an individual’s personal identity or “internal race,” resulting in intentional mismatch (Roth 2010). To examine why individuals intentionally create mismatch, I draw on theories of dramaturgy (Goffman 1959), doing race (Khanna 2011a; Markus and Moya 2010; West and Fenstermaker 1995), and microaggressions (Embrick, Domínguez, and Karsak 2017; Hughey et al. 2017; Pierce 1974; Sue et al. 2007). While Jillian Paragg (2017) has examined how multiracial Canadians respond to others’ queries about race with “‘ready’ narratives,” I use the framing of “racial elevator speeches” to emphasize how some American participants deliberately omit personal identity in their responses. I find that multiracial individuals rely on racial elevator speeches to mitigate the harm these inquiries incur as a form of microaggression. Yet in providing scripts simplified to be legible to others, multiracial individuals’ racial elevator speeches reinforce existing racial structures in the United States.

Understandings Of Racial (And Multiracial) Fluidity

Scholars understand both race and racial identity as fluid social constructs, negotiated in relation to others. However, “fluidity” can be understood in multiple ways. As a contextual social construct, racial categories shift over time and according to racialization practices prevalent in any given period of history (Hochschild and Powell 2008; Lee 1993; Liebler et al. 2017; Omi and Winant 1994). Multiracial identities have shifted as well; for example, scholars have found generational differences in how bi/multiracial people identify (Jones et al. 2021; Korgen 1998). Another form of fluidity is change over the life course, reflected in longitudinal studies revealing multiracial individuals may change how they identify over time (Clayton 2020; Doyle and Kao 2007; D. R. Harris and Sim 2002; Hitlin, Scott Brown, and Elder 2006). Finally, scholars have examined fluidity in identity choices, finding that multiracial individuals may identify with different identity “types,” from identifying as a single race to shifting identification by context (Renn 2004; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008). The latter complements research on racial/ethnic options (Khanna 2011b; Waters 1990); however, these options focus on personal identity, a measure of race that may not fully reflect lived experiences. Thus, racial measurement accounts for some of the “fluidity” that appears present for racial identity, providing support for calls to use multiple measures of race (López et al. 2018; Saperstein, Kizer, and Penner 2016). For some, using multiple measures addresses a methodological problem, namely, the discrepancies between what scholars intend to measure and what research instruments capture (Miyawaki 2016; Roth 2016; Saperstein 2006). For others, racial measurement is a theoretical issue that highlights how our understandings of race remain limited. These scholars argue race is multidimensional and meaningful differences exist between these dimensions (Dixon and Telles 2017; López et al. 2018; Morning 2018; Roth 2010, 2016). From this perspective, researchers have used race as a proxy for several concepts, from ancestry to appearance, all of which may produce different results (Bratter and Gorman 2011; Noymer, Penner, and Saperstein 2011; Saperstein 2006, 2012; Telles 2014). These differences underscore the importance of understanding race as multidimensional.

Wendy D. Roth (2010) provides a framework to distinguish between what she identifies as six dimensions of race, including (1) “internal race,” defined as “subjective self-identification,” and (2) “expressed race” or “the race you say you are to others” (p. 1294).¹ These dimensions become distinct when there is a “racial mismatch.” Although mismatch appears more likely for multiracial individuals due to varied identity options (Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008), scholarship on racial mismatch for multiracials remains limited and has largely been studied as an inaccuracy imposed upon multiracial individuals by others (Song and Aspinall 2012). Scholars have emphasized differences between how individuals self-identify and how they express race to others (Roth 2010, 2016; Saperstein 2006; Saperstein et al. 2016); however, “expressed race” in these studies has been limited to survey categories. Mismatches between internal race and identification on surveys may merely reflect the shortcomings of racial categories, particularly for measuring complex multiracial identities. If expressed race was instead measured in open-ended, naturally occurring situations, would multiracial individuals’ responses more closely reflect their internal race or existing racial categories? If open-ended cases of expressed race continue to mismatch internal race, why and for what purposes do individuals create intentional mismatches?

Racial Identity As Performance

General theories of identity expression provide long-standing explanations for why identity expression may differ from personal identity. Erving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgy distinguishes between “front stage” performances and “backstage” or internal identities. A dramaturgical analysis attributes these performances to pressure to meet the expectations of a social context. Similarly, social psychologists describe identity as social and situational, finding individuals construct and revise their sense of identity based on interactions with others (Cooley 1902; Goffman 1959; Mead 1934). Yet scholars have questioned the degree to which these processes can be applied universally when considering ascribed identities like race and gender (Hunt et al. 2000).

By contrast, “doing gender” and “doing race” literatures refute the idea that ascribed identities are passive and do not involve action (West and Fenstermaker 1995; West and Zimmerman 1987). Individuals can “do race” by drawing on cultural markers or manipulating physical appearance (Morning 2018; Sims, Pirtle, and Johnson-Arnold 2020), although the effectiveness of these performances is limited to what others see as “racially plausible” and may not result in a change to one’s perceived status (Stockstill 2018). Doing race is a supplemental performance that engages with not only the expectations of an immediate social context but the constraints imposed by broader social structures.

Racial identity is inseparable from racial structure and racism. Racial formation theory establishes the link between the creation of racial categories and racism, noting the origins of “race” lay in European settlers’ need to justify theft of Indigenous peoples’ land, resources, and lives (Omi and Winant 1994). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s (1997) racialized social structure framework also acknowledges racism as both inherent and rational to the U.S. structure, which reinforces socially constructed racial categories. Today, race scholars widely acknowledge a shift from overt racism to covert, subtle, or “color-blind” racism (Bonilla-Silva 2009; Feagin 2006). One subsection of this area is the study of microaggressions.

The Impact Of Microaggressions On Identity Expression

Microaggressions are defined as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color” (Sue et al. 2007:271). Although some have critiqued the use of the word “microaggression” as minimizing the impact of these instances, proponents of the term emphasize its value in highlighting how seemingly minor interactions compound over time. Studies have found that those who experience microaggressions face significant negative consequences, including greater stress, higher rates of depression, lower reported mental health, and lower self-esteem (Torres, Driscoll, and Burrow 2010; Wong-Padoongpatt et al. 2017).

While multiracial people can experience microaggressions intended for monoracial people of color, they may also experience “multiracial microaggressions”: indignities, slights, and insults that reflect monoracism, or a system “where individuals who do not fit monoracial categories may be oppressed on systemic and interpersonal levels because of underlying assumptions and beliefs in singular, discrete racial categories” (Johnston and Nadal 2010:125). Thus, multiracial microaggressions are an especially germane case to study how racial categories are maintained at both interactional and structural levels. “Racial identity inquiries” are one example of a multiracial microaggression, defined as “queries directed toward multiracial individuals as others attempt to determine their racial background” (Tran et al. 2016:26). In their taxonomy of multiracial microaggressions, Marc P. Johnston and Kevin L. Nadal (2010) categorize such questions under “exoticization and objectification.” Several studies establish these questions as a common experience for multiracial individuals (Anderson 2015; Herman 2004; Paragg 2017; Sims 2016; Sims and Njaka 2019), but fewer studies have addressed how individuals respond to these queries, and how their responses may reflect or resist racialized social systems.

Most multiracial individuals understand questions about their race to be rude or uncomfortable, even as they acknowledge that the questioner has no ill intent (Sims and Njaka 2019). Paragg (2017) describes these questions as reflections of the colonial gaze that seek out a multiracial person’s “originary point of racial mixing,” constructing them as multiracial in that moment of interaction (p. 292). She found that Canadian multiracial individuals develop “‘ready’ narratives” that provide kinship narratives and/or describe national origin as inherited through blood (Paragg 2017). Jennifer Patrice Sims and Chinelo L. Njaka (2019) examine how these questions take place across multiple contexts but occur less frequently for those perceived as high status. Similarly, Jennifer Patrice Sims (2016) finds that these questions vary by age and authority, as some multiracial individuals recalled getting these questions more frequently when they were young. With respect to multiracial individuals’ responses, Sims and Njaka (2019) distinguish between “linguistic racial accommodation” and “linguistic racial confrontation” (Cazenave 2015). “Accommodation” entails responses that align with racial ideologies of the dominant racialized group, while “confrontation” rejects or challenges these ideologies (Sims and Njaka 2019:71–72). In Paragg’s (2017) work, multiracials accommodate when they provide “‘ready’ narratives” legible to the colonial gaze and confront when they “play on” the colonial gaze by intentionally giving unexpected or illegible answers. However, given that racial identity inquiries also function as microaggressions, how might this lens allow for a stronger understanding of when and how multiracial individuals accommodate or confront the ideologies present in others’ questions? How do multiracial individuals respond to inquiries about their race and address the microaggressive nature of this interaction?

Data And Method

Recruitment and Sample

In 2012–2014, I conducted 30 semistructured interviews with multiracial young adults living in Colorado. To recruit subjects, I distributed fliers around university campuses, through class visits, and department listservs. I did not limit my sample to any one racial group and used purposeful sampling to reach individuals with a range of multiracial ancestries, recruiting at diversity-related student groups and organizations, classes that discussed race, and snowball sampling. Recruitment materials invited volunteers who were “two or more racial backgrounds” or “considered [themselves] multiracial.” In terms of the study site, the state has a sizable Latinx-origin population (21.8 percent) but overall is disproportionately white (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Colorado’s multiracial population (3.1 percent) was comparable with the U.S. average (2.8 percent) for those identifying as two or more racial categories around the time of data collection (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). The resulting sample consisted of multiracial individuals from varied racial/ethnic backgrounds living in Colorado at the time of the interviews. The 30-person sample consists of 18 biracial participants, 9 multiracial participants, and 3 who were monoracial but multiethnic (e.g., Dominican and Cuban; Sri Lankan and Japanese).² The most common response was white and at least one other racial/ethnic group; 17 participants were biracial with one white parent. Among this group, 3 participants were Black/white, 10 Asian/white, 3 Latinx/white, and 1 Native American/white. All participants but one were born and raised in the United States. Thus, this research speaks primarily to individuals who are part white and identify with at least one other racial or ethnic category, which is consistent with the general population (Jones and Bullock 2013). The gender breakdown, as identified by the interviewer, included 21 women and 9 men. Thus, this study speaks primarily to the experiences of multiracial women, as empirical research has found that men and women experience multiraciality differently (Davenport 2016; Joseph-Salisbury 2018; Newman 2019). Most participants (80 percent) were college students, three were high school students, and three were college graduates.³ Participants’ ages ranged from 16 to 31, with 80 percent of participants falling between ages 18 and 22.

I focused on young adults in their late teens and early 20s for whom meaningful development around racial identity may have occurred recently or been ongoing. Prior research suggests that significant aspects of the identity formation process occur in adolescence and that college can act as a turning point when students meet others from a wide range of backgrounds (Bracey, Bámaca, and Umaña-Taylor 2004; Herman 2004). Racial identities and self-appraisals are informed in relation to others, with parents and guardians serving as the earliest reference points (Herman 2004; Korgen 1998; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002). Young, college-age adults are more likely to retain contact with both parents and community members around whom they were raised, as well as a new array of diverse college peers. As such, they are uniquely positioned to speak clearly about the contrast between their family and college peer groups, making them an ideal population to examine varied contexts and influences on racial identity. College-age participants may also be influenced by the university setting, in which there are formal opportunities to study and reflect on race and identity, in contrast to middle-aged and older adults. Yet given that power dynamics shift with age, young adults may be more likely to receive direct questions about their racial identity than older adults and may be an ideal case to study racial elevator speeches.

Positionality and Data Collection

The study was informed by my position as a multiracial person. In recruitment materials, I made the decision to identify myself as biracial in hopes of portraying myself as an insider. At the beginning of each interview, I gave participants an overview of the study and described my racial identity as a motivator for embarking on this research. In being the first to share, I hoped to set a precedent for openness and establish rapport more quickly than if I had been (1) read as white or (2) close-lipped about my own identity. While one concern may be that sharing my own racial identity influenced the responses of participants, a few factors mitigate this possibility. First, I did not immediately ask participants about race, allowing for temporal distance between my description and their own. Second, I asked participants to identify their race and how they would describe their race to others at multiple points in the interview. Six separate questions ask participants to describe their racial identity. Discussions of racial identity, including language and terminology, also arose in response to other questions throughout most interviews. Finally, participants’ descriptions of their race vary and do not appear to mirror my own language.

Analysis

While I did not set out to study multiracial individuals’ responses to inquiries about race, these queries consistently came up in interviews. Interviews covered multiracial identity, the factors that have influenced their racial identities, and the degree to which participants believed race and multiraciality could be fluid. Interviews ranged from 30 to 90 minutes, averaging 56 minutes. They were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967), which led me to identify racial identity inquiries and racial elevator speeches as salient themes. I then conducted focused coding on participants’ responses to these inquiries, identifying these responses primarily through a question that asked how participants identify to different groups of people (yourself, family, friends, strangers, and on surveys). I identified racial elevator speeches primarily in response to the “strangers” subquestion, in which participants were most likely to discuss receiving racial identity inquiries. Finally, I contrast this response to personal identity, which I gathered from the “yourself” subquestion, as well as any relevant descriptions of participants’ personal identity throughout the interview.⁴ Focusing on this subset of responses, this article covers “racial elevator speeches,” how these elevator speeches may differ from personal racial identities, and the implications of those differences.

Results

I find that multiracial individuals typically respond to racial identity inquiries with what I refer to as “racial elevator speeches.” Racial elevator speeches are relatively consistent scripts that convey racial and ethnic identity, are employed by multiracial persons with goals intended to mitigate microaggressions, and may “mismatch” with their personal identity. The metaphor of an “elevator speech,” a brief description that fits within an elevator ride, alludes to a neatly packaged presentation of self. Not all aspects of personal identity, if any, are relevant in an elevator speech, regardless of their importance to the individual. I draw on three points in the interviews to examine how racial elevator speeches may differ from personal identity/internal race. (1) Racial elevator speeches/expressed race are drawn from participants’ responses to “how do you identify to strangers” or others’ questions about race. (2) Personal identity/internal race is drawn from participants’ responses to “how do you identify personally.” (3) Participants’ initial narratives in response to a question on “racial and ethnic background” contribute to understandings of either their personal identity or racial elevator speech, depending on how participants chose to answer the question. Some participants gave a brief answer akin to an elevator speech; others immediately gave extensive accounts of ancestry and family background, explaining nuances in their racial identities that they would not have included in a response to strangers’ questions about race. Out of 30 interviews, 26 participants shared a script that I coded as a racial elevator speech, or a response that they used consistently to answer questions about their racial background. Overall, participants anticipated being held accountable for presenting their identity in ways consistent with racial categories, and so most prepared a script: the racial elevator speech.

Among participants who used racial elevator speeches, common reasons given for this consistency alluded to the microaggressive nature of these questions and included satisfying the expectations of others, avoiding further questions, and avoiding potential tensions involved in talking about race. Roughly one-third of participants suggested a desire to use an elevator speech aligned with their personal identity, that is, they hoped to emphasize the identity/identities most important to them. Yet in practice, participants indicated that this intention was often secondary to the goals of efficiency and clarification. To match others’ expectations, which are based on racialized interpretations of a multiracial individual’s appearance, many participants simplified their racial identities for others, even leaving out details that might be integral to their personal identities. In this way, participants intentionally created racial mismatch, prioritizing the expectations of others over their own sense of identity.

Creating intentional mismatch, as well as the construction of a racial elevator speech in the first place, appeared to be motivated by the desire to mitigate microaggressions. While it may seem as if multiracial individuals give up agency to conform to the expectations of others, this was often a strategic choice in which individuals deemed it not worth the effort to explain their personal identity to a stranger. Racial elevator speeches serve as not only a communication shortcut but a way to reduce the time and energy spent responding to questions that also operate as racial microaggressions.

Racial Elevator Speeches

The concept of racial elevator speeches may call to mind Tiger Woods’s personal descriptor “Cablinasian,” an invented term combining Caucasian, Black, (American) Indian, and Asian. Yet for most multiracial individuals, descriptions of identity were more mundane. As Table 1 demonstrates, racial elevator speeches ranged from a direct list of races (direct response), a general term like “mixed” accompanied by a follow-up explanation (general response with follow-up), to a simplified elevator speech focused primarily on one racial or ethnic identity (simplified response). In the following sections, I provide more context for each response type and consider how they differ from personal identity (see Appendix for full list of participants’ racial elevator speeches).

Table 1.

Selected Participants’ Racial Elevator Speeches.

Participant	Racial/Ethnic Ancestry	Racial Elevator Speech
Direct response
Camille	White/Native Alaskan	“I’ll say both white and Native Alaskan”
Joanna	Asian/white	“I’ll say Scotch-Korean, oh and don’t forget the German”
General response with follow-up
Louis	White/Black	“I usually say that I’m biracial, that I’m half-white and half-Black”
Nia	Asian and Black/Black and Native American	“I say that I’m mixed. I’ll usually say what my parents are . . . my mom’s half-Japanese and half-Black, and my dad’s Black”
Simplified response
Travis	White/Black and Native American	“I would just say I’m half-Black, because my dad is Black”
Dustin	White, Native American/Latino	“I usually just rely on saying Hispanic”

Racial elevator speeches were crafted intentionally and applied consistently, even if they appeared to be a straightforward list of identities. Joanna, 18 and Korean/white, reported, “I’ll say Scotch-Korean, oh and don’t forget the German.” In the interview, her use of this phrase was playful, as if joking, but she repeated the phrase verbatim to me a second time and referred to a shortened version (“Scotch-Korean”) several times. When asked about her choice in language, Joanna noted her preference for “Scotch-Korean,” rather than other hyphenates such as “German-” or “Deutsch-,” indicating that she had considered these options. Although she described making this choice based on how the phrases sound, rather than a desire to emphasize her Scottish ancestry, Joanna’s account suggests deliberation and intentionality. Importantly, she notes the convenience of “already [having] a line for it” when people ask about her race. I argue this convenience is a strategy that minimizes the mental burden and discomfort of sharing one’s racial/ethnic background with strangers. “Scotch-Korean” gives a concise account of ancestry that contains enough detail to satisfy others’ questions. Joanna made the overarching statement, “I honestly think it’s cool being a Scotch-Korean,” adding that her friends also “just think it’s cool.” She suggests that her view has been either affirmed or shaped by the views of others. With a racial elevator speech that others deem “cool,” Joanna seems able to diffuse potential tensions around talking about race and preemptively avoid any internal dilemma in deciding how to describe her ancestry; when confronted with a question about her race, she only needs to recite her line.

Joanna’s account suggests a desire to personalize her expressed race; however, participants understood that the purpose of the racial elevator speech was to meet the expectations of others. This was clear in the case of participants who personally identified with general terms encompassing multiple identities, such as multiracial, mixed, or multicultural. These terms may represent an individual’s personal identity, but unlike “Scotch-Korean,” they were not satisfactory answers to a racial identity inquiry, which demands specificity as an “answer” to perceived racial ambiguity. Nia, 18, a first-year college student with Black, Japanese, and Native American ancestry, explained, “I say that I’m mixed” but was quick to add, “I’ll usually say what my parents are . . . my mom’s half-Japanese and half-Black, and my dad’s Black.” For Nia, the term “mixed” more accurately reflects the diverse influences that have shaped her identity. She described her mother as having “this whole rainbow family ’cause all her brothers and sisters were adopted . . . Her sister’s half-Black, half-white . . . My other uncle [is] full blood Native American and then my other aunt [is] German and Indonesian.” However, Nia’s racial elevator speech excludes this family influence and her own father’s Native American ancestry. Ultimately, terms such as “mixed” may feel more personally accurate to a participant, but when asked about their race, multiracial individuals were compelled to craft racial elevator speeches responding to demands inherent in these questions.

Finally, other participants did not identify with general terms like “multiracial” but simplified their racial elevator speeches even further. Dustin, 21, described his identity to me as “Spanish, Italian, and Navajo, and German.” His grandmother’s Native American identity was especially salient, as he spent a lot of time with her as a child.

For a long time, I identified most with being Native American. Even though I’m not mostly Native American, my family has had a lot of influence with it. My grandmother always sort of privileged that part of her, so I always sort of admired it. It always seemed more of a cultural heritage to me . . . that’s what I’ve always identified with strongly.

Dustin also reasoned that Navajo was “the most distinct influence. Since all the other people in [his] family are biracial.” Yet when others ask about his race, Dustin says, “I usually just rely on saying Hispanic,” obscuring the Native American identity that he describes as so personally important. He explained the discrepancy as such:

When I say that I’m part Navajo, then I get a lot of questions about that. And since I can’t really answer them that coherently, then that becomes a questionable identity for me too. So that’s always why it’s easier to just say Hispanic.

Part of this “questionable identity” stemmed from Dustin’s uncertainty about his blood quantum, the ancestry measure used to determine tribal citizenship in the United States. Lack of information about ancestry or family history is a common deterrent to Native American self-identification (Liebler 2004; Nagel 1995) and other participants, like Nia, also omitted Native ancestry from their racial elevator speeches.⁵ Dustin also felt it was difficult and uncomfortable to explain the influence of Native American heritage on his identity. Regarding personal identity, he notes,

I stress that one [Native American identity] personally. I don’t really express that one publicly. . . . we can choose for ourselves, in a secret language. But I think as soon as we want to articulate that, in the social, choice gets taken away.

For participants like Dustin, no elevator speech could encompass or accurately express the uneven and complex influence of his racial ancestries, nor were participants necessarily willing to share these intricate, personal details with strangers. Dustin’s case highlights the primary purpose of the racial elevator speech: to respond to others’ expectations rather than express personal identity.

Participants’ goals for their chosen racial elevator speeches indicated that questions about race can function as microaggressions that exoticize, objectify, and deny multiracial realities (Johnston and Nadal 2010). As Dustin’s account suggests, multiracial identity can be deeply personal and complex, yet others’ inquiries about race act as microaggressions that demand multiracial individuals situate themselves within a system of monoracial categories. Participants who spoke transparently about the goals of their racial elevator speech confirmed that using a script allowed them to communicate the information requested (racial and ethnic ancestry) quickly and efficiently, after which they could change the topic or end the interaction altogether. Melissa, a 16-year-old high school student who is Korean and white, reported, “If it’s someone I don’t know, I just keep it general and say, ‘white and Asian.’ Usually. But that’s just because I don’t wanna talk with them.” Similarly, Catie, 23, expressed, “I usually just say Japanese and Italian because if I don’t, people would just keep guessing.” Her racial elevator speech is crafted in response to the most common queries she receives: “Most of the time I just get a guess, like you meet somebody, and they’ll be like, are you half-Mexican? No, I’m Japanese Italian. . . . that’s usually how it goes because I almost always get that question.” Catie’s elevator speech acknowledges the level of detail most often requested of her and immediately delivers it to her questioner. She consistently listed her non-white identity first, likely acknowledging that this is the information others were seeking when trying to guess her race. Both Melissa and Catie provide brief answers to prevent additional questioning or unwanted conversation. Their racial elevator speeches are direct, short, and impersonal. They reveal no family details. Finally, they indicate that racial identity inquiries are undesirable interactions, suggesting an awareness of these inquiries as microaggressions, even though they do not use this language themselves.

Resistance to Racial Elevator Speech Expectations

While all participants expressed an understanding that responses to racial identity inquiries were expected to be brief and legible to others, four participants resisted these expectations by challenging the norms of a racial elevator speech. Laura, 23, had recently begun using a script that prioritized personal identity over others’ expectations. Initially, Laura identified herself to me as “half-Korean” and added that her father was white after being prompted. However, this was no longer her default response: “I’ve increasingly, this past year, been using the term hapa a lot more. So that’s how I’ve come to identify . . . it’s been a process.” Although “hapa” is associated with multiracial individuals with Asian ancestry living in Hawaii, Laura chose the term because “answering with hapa made me feel like it’s more embracing both sides.” Laura uses this term to maintain congruence between her expressed race and internal race (Roth 2016). However, she notes that employing hapa as a racial elevator speech requires additional explanation, as most people are unfamiliar with the term. Laura’s choice is crafted with careful attention to the sociopolitical meanings of language and speaks to the importance of multiraciality to her personal identity. By noting that she began using hapa as a recent college graduate, Laura’s account parallels longitudinal research that has found biracial identity changes during college (Clayton 2020). In a few cases, participants gave intentionally obscure responses. Prior to choosing hapa, Laura spoke about instances of resistance: “If somebody asks and I get like a malicious vibe from them, I may be sassy. Or answer what I know may not be the answer to the question. Like, ‘I’m a student!’” Rose, 21, French Canadian/Japanese, shared, “sometimes if I feel like it, I’m like ‘all American,’ just to be cheeky.” In this way, participants engaged in linguistic racial confrontation (Sims and Njaka 2019) and “played on” others’ colonial gaze (Paragg 2017) in some interactions but still employed racial elevator speeches in others.

By contrast, participants also resisted expectations using extended scripts. These individuals gave more detail than expected, seemingly reasoning that those who pose racial identity inquiries should be willing to listen to a long response. Hope, 22, typically responded to racial identity inquiries by discussing her last name, which was the most common trigger for a query. She first offers an elevator speech, “My dad is Nigerian, so I’m essentially half-Nigerian,” and explained,

Then I usually make a joke, because [my last name] was Americanized. But it’s still, kind of not easy to talk about, so I’ll make a joke or . . . I’ll talk about how to say it correctly, because people will always be interested in how to pronounce it.

Hope’s ideal response is lengthy and involves engaging with her family history, because she’s willing to assert her personal identity, even if it’s “not easy to talk about.” Rose, 21, used an extended script to emphasize her overlooked identities, expressing frustration at implications that she was not American. “If people ask where I’m from . . . I know they’re pegging for more, always.” Like Hope, Rose has a simple elevator speech prepared: “If someone were to ask me, I’d usually say that I’m half-Japanese, half French-Canadian.” However, because others fixate on her Japanese identity, Rose’s extended script delves into where her white mother is from, a literal answer to the question “where are you from?”: “My mom is American, grew up in California, born in Hawaii moved to California. I give this pretty good backstory, just don’t pigeonhole me into being Japanese.” Similarly, Kiersten, 20, acknowledges that others are seeking a simple answer and instead says, “I give them the full thing, ’cause this is what I am. I’m not Black. I’m not Black and white. I’m Black, white, Mexican, Native American, Spanish.” Kiersten ends with an indignant tone, suggesting that asserting multiple identities, rather than providing a simple script, was a form of resistance.

Multiracial women like Hope worded their responses to suggest they had experienced resistance from others, yet they appeared to do so in ways that strike a balance between appeasing the listener and expressing their personal identity. When I asked Hope if her response differs for acquaintances versus strangers, Hope took a defensive tone and gave a seemingly unrelated answer: “I’m gonna be honest. I’m not gonna try . . . to make them feel better . . . if that’s who I am, then why not? You know? I should be able to say that.” Although women are more likely than men to be perceived as bi/multiracial (Davenport 2016), we also know that women are penalized for assertiveness compared with men (Ridgeway 2001). In addition, Hope and Kiersten are not perceived as white and report being interpreted by others as Black. Consistent with prior research, their expressed identities add nuance by emphasizing a Black immigrant identity or additional non-Black identities to identify as multiracial (Khanna 2011b; Waring and Purkayastha 2017). Thus, while participants in these cases resist racial elevator speech norms by asserting their personal identities, they do so within the confines of gender stereotypes and efforts to mitigate the effects of anti-Blackness.

The Absence of Racial Elevator Speeches

Finally, the four participants who did not discuss clear racial elevator speeches appeared to differ in that they were overwhelmingly viewed as white and could avoid racial identity inquiries or approached these inquiries from a different paradigm. Thomas and Paul, two white-passing participants, reported that they do not receive direct inquiries about their race, eliminating the need to craft a consistent script. As Thomas, 22, German/Mexican, stated, “I could just pass as white and no one would know the difference.” However, they experienced resistance when claiming a non-white identity. Paul, 31, Mexican/white, explained,

the thing about me is that I have a very strong, actually personal Mexican identity—that’s where I get my religion, it’s where I get my values and everything like that—and my white side of my family’s really small . . . And then on the other side of family, I was raised with this huge family, huge influence on my life, and so this totally defined who I am.

However, he added, “people don’t understand that, because they just see I’m white, non-Hispanic.” As a result, Paul says, “I try to avoid the conversation [about race] so much. . . . I absolutely will not bring it up. At all. If not forced.” While Paul preferred to avoid conversations about his race entirely, Thomas communicated a kind of defensive bravado and assertion of individualism, stating, “I’m Mexican and German and if they don’t believe it, I don’t really care” (emphasis added). Although they are perceived as white and did not share racial elevator speeches, Paul and Thomas’s accounts mirror strategies used by other participants. Thomas, like Kiersten and Hope, is firm in the belief that he should assert his full identity to others. By contrast, Paul mirrors Dustin, simplifying his identity by adjusting to others’ preconceived notions of race. Paul allows others to assume he is white, while holding a strong personal identity as Mexican; Dustin, who is never perceived as white, identifies to others as Hispanic, even though he feels most connected to his Navajo identity. Although they do not use racial elevator speeches, Paul and Thomas express an awareness of the same dynamics that shape elevator speeches: the need for racial/ethnic identities to be legible to others, particularly based on assumptions about physical appearance.

The remaining two participants held no racial elevator speeches as they approached racial identity inquiries from a different paradigm. An international student from Colombia, Sophia, 20, shifted between describing herself as Latin, Latin American, Hispanic, or Colombian when Americans asked about her background. Born and raised outside of the United States with different racial socialization, Sophia understood her background as mestiza but found it difficult to situate herself in discussions of race in the United States, sharing,

Whenever there’s talk about race, I ask myself, what am I? Like if I’m going to comment on anything, I need to start with identifying, but really I can’t . . . I just don’t feel like I have a race.

Leena, 22, Slovenian/Indian, also disrupts racial inquiry interactions by asking others to guess her race. While turning the question onto the questioner might be interpreted as resistance, Leena described these interactions as positive, perhaps due to her work in theater, in which being perceived as racially ambiguous was a benefit that allowed her to play a wider range of roles. I suspect that upon explicitly asking Sophia and Leena about racial elevator speeches, they may have revealed scripts, but this was not how they chose to describe their reactions to racial identity inquiries.

In sum, using racial elevator speeches congruent with their personal identities could give participants a greater sense of agency and alignment between their internal and expressed race, but participants acknowledged that the cost of this agency was additional time and energy spent defending their choices. In addition, not all participants’ identities fit into a single term or list of identities, no matter how carefully this language was chosen. Racial and ethnic ancestries may influence personal identity in uneven ways, a reality obscured by the simplicity of a list. Thus, for many multiracial individuals, some degree of mismatch between racial elevator speeches and personal identity was unavoidable and, in some cases, created intentionally to mitigate microaggressions.

Discussion

In response to racial identity inquiries, many multiracial individuals craft racial elevator speeches, or relatively consistent scripts that they apply across racial inquiry situations. These scripts do not necessarily reflect how individuals personally identify, a difference I conceive of as a racial mismatch between internal race and expressed race (Roth 2010). Unlike mismatches examined in prior research, mismatch in the racial elevator speech was not imposed by others’ misinterpretations or limited survey options (Roth 2010; Song and Aspinall 2012; Veenstra 2011), but intentionally created by participants. Further consideration of participants’ goals for their racial elevator speeches reveals mismatch can be a strategy that minimizes discomfort and limits harm from racial identity inquiries, which often function as microaggressions (Anderson 2015; Johnston and Nadal 2010; Tran et al. 2016).

The concept of racial elevator speeches confirms and extends prior research through a focus on mismatches and microaggressions. Scholars have conceptualized multiracials’ responses to racial identity inquiries as “‘ready’ narratives” responding to a colonial gaze in Canada (Paragg 2017) and forms of linguistic racial accommodation and confrontation in the United States and the United Kingdom (Sims and Njaka 2019). In this study, I apply the “racial elevator speech” to further examine the nature of linguistic racial accommodation within multiracial Americans’ “‘ready’ narratives.” Among some participants, accommodation takes place to such an extent that individuals intentionally obscure personal identity to offer an expressed race conforming to societal expectations, not unlike an “elevator speech” given by a job seeker who conforms to professional expectations within a given industry. From a dramaturgical perspective, racial elevator speeches also act as a front stage script that appeals to “a scene of wider scope”— the “scene” in this case being American understandings of race—and do not necessarily reflect how the participant “would like to appear” (Goffman 1959:77). By contrast, participants shared their “backstage” selves or “internal race” throughout the interview, explaining how family members, traditions, and communities influenced how they personally identify. Thus, multiracial young adults not only construct racial elevator speeches to explain their race to others but maintain an awareness that their identities may be too complex to fit any script and that these scripts need not fully account for their personal identities. However, to better understand why some multiracial individuals engage in linguistic racial accommodation to the point of creating racial mismatch, I consider the context of racial identity inquiries as microaggressions.

Multiracial microaggressions are “daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, enacted by monoracial persons that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights toward multiracial individuals or groups” (Johnston and Nadal 2010:126). Questions about a multiracial person’s race fall under “exotification and objectification,” in which an individual may be dehumanized, made to feel abnormal, and have their race “put on display” for public consumption (Johnston and Nadal 2010:135). While questions about a multiracial person’s race can function as moments to express pride in one’s heritage or build solidarity with others who are multiracial (Sims and Njaka 2019; Tran et al. 2016), I focus on queries from monoracial persons, the type of interaction participants focused on when giving racial elevator speeches. Participants who resist the conventions of the racial elevator speech revealed the most about its microaggressive nature. Individuals like Hope, Kiersten, and Rose intentionally give longer narratives to communicate the complexity of their identities, while acknowledging others expect a reductive version of race. Others also question or ignore racial identities that do not fit their conceptions of that race, engaging in racial border patrolling (Mills 2017) and the denial of multiracial realities (Harris 2017; Johnston and Nadal 2010), practices that explain the defensiveness some participants felt when they expressed their identities on their own terms.

However, multiracial experiences are not uniform, but shaped differently by anti-Blackness, colorism, and gender. Participants’ accounts reveal that suspicion of any non-white ancestry becomes reasonable cause to inquire about race and thus reify racial boundaries. For example, multiracial individuals with Black ancestry and those unable to “pass” as white confront these questions more frequently (Khanna 2010; Khanna and Johnson 2010) and face more skepticism when trying to assert a white identity compared with a Black one (Stockstill 2018). Black multiracial men are less likely to receive questions about their race compared with Black multiracial women, due to interpretations of Black multiracial men as Black and white fears of Black masculinity (Davenport 2016; Joseph-Salisbury 2018; Sims and Joseph-Salisbury 2019; Sims and Njaka 2019). By contrast, Paul and Thomas, who reported not receiving queries because they appear white, suggest that white-appearing masculinity may deter questions about race for different reasons, such as the infrequency of these questions for individuals perceived as high status (Sims 2016; Sims and Njaka 2019), which may apply to “high status” social identities like “white” and “man,” and conflations of whiteness as “normal” and “raceless” (Du Bois [1920] 2005; Feagin 2006), which negate the need for racial identity inquiries.

Racial elevator speeches, then, are a strategy used to minimize the racial harm and discomfort inherent in inquiry interactions, by providing previously thought-out and practiced scripts that satisfy the questioner and stave off additional questions. The persistence of these questions and the need for scripts indicates the persistence of race-based constraints on multiracial identity. The views of others, with whom multiracial individuals may be forced to interact at any time, are shaped by race-essentializing categorization practices such as the one-drop rule and hypodescent, and the rigidity of monoracial categories/monoracism in the U.S. racial structure (Bratter and O’Connell 2017; Gullickson and Morning 2011; Johnston and Nadal 2010; Khanna 2010). Multiracial individuals may shape others’ categorization to some degree, but this is limited by an expected alignment with physical appearance, or “racial plausibility,” and does not create “an effective pathway for changing their perceived status” (Stockstill 2018:140). Even as multiracials navigate and craft identities unique to their social position (Ferguson 2016; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008), “play on” the colonial gaze (Paragg 2017), and engage in linguistic racial confrontation (Sims and Njaka 2019), they also employ accommodative linguistic shortcuts like the racial elevator speech when forced to engage with dehumanizing inquiries such as “what are you?,” mitigating immediate harm at the cost of reproducing the same structures that assume these questions are normal and benign.

Limitations and Implications

Limitations of the study are concentrated around self-selection, region, and gender. First, participants who self-selected into the study viewed their multiple racial ancestries as salient enough to merit discussion. This study is limited in its ability to capture the experiences of multiracial Americans who identify as monoracial or do not view race as salient to identity. Yet even the participants in this study, who had generally thought deeply about their multiracial identities, felt the need to craft racial elevator speeches in response to others’ inquiries. We might reasonably conclude that young adults for whom multiracial identity is not salient may find it easier to accommodate monoracial categorization norms. Second, being conducted in Colorado, the results of this study may hold unobserved regional distinctions. However, given the concentration of multiracial identity studies in coastal states and the South, this study contributes to a growing body of literature which considers multiraciality within understudied regional contexts. Finally, while these data suggest patterns about gender consistent with prior research, this study is limited by a sample of primarily women. Patterns around the racial elevator speech speak primarily to the experiences and motivations of multiracial women. Future research could consider how racial elevator speeches differ for men, in different regions in the United States, and for multiracial individuals who may not identify as such but are nonetheless asked to explain their race to strangers.

The implications of racial elevator speeches, their potential mismatch with personal identities, and their utility as a response to microaggressions are as follows. Expressed race, even when conveyed verbally to others, does not necessarily reflect the personal identities of multiracial individuals. These findings support calls to use multiple measures of race and to conceptually break down the social construct of race into multiple dimensions. On paper, the U.S. multiracial population continues to grow exponentially, increasingby 276 percent between the 2010 and 2020 Census (Jones et al. 2021). Yet, researchers already expect that this growth is informed by more than an increase in birthrates and may be influenced by phenomenon such as the rise in genetic ancestry testing. Moving forward, it will become more important than ever to distinguish between how individuals present themselves, how they personally identify, and their lived experiences with race.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix.

All Participants’ Racial Ancestries and Racial Elevator Speeches.

Participant	Racial/Ethnic Ancestry	Racial Elevator Speech
Direct response
Allison	Asian/white	“My dad is German, and my mom is Korean”
Antonio	Asian/Latino	“Half-Mexican, half-Korean”
Camille	White/Native Alaskan	“White and Native Alaskan”
Dave	Asian/white, Latino	“I’m half Asian, a quarter Hispanic and a quarter white”
Esperanza	Latina/Latino^a	“Cuban-Dominican”
Joanna	Asian/white	“Scotch-Korean, oh and don’t forget the German”
John	Asian/white	“I’m half Japanese and I’m white”
Katie	White/Asian	“Japanese and Italian”
Kiersten	White, Latina/Black, white	“I’m Black, white, Mexican, Native American, [and] Spanish”
Mary	White/Asian	“I’m Japanese and also Italian and, and also Polish”
Melissa	Asian/white	“White and Asian”
Rachel	Asian/white	“I’m half-Korean, and half-white”
Rose	White/Asian	“Half-Japanese, half French-Canadian”
General response with follow-up
Amaya	Native American, Latina, Black, white/Black	“Mixed . . . and they’re like, ‘oh what are you mixed with?’ [Then] I just like tell them all five of them”
Kaitlin	Black/white	“Biracial . . . my mom is from Jamaica”
Laura	Asian/white	“Hapa”
Louis	White/Black	“I’m biracial, that I’m half-white and half-Black”
Nia	Asian, Black/Black, Native American	“Mixed. I’ll usually say what my parents are . . . my mom’s half-Japanese and half-Black and my dad’s Black”
Simplified response
Amber	Pacific Islander, Asian/Pacific Islander, white, Native American	“Samoan or Pacific Islander”
Annie	White/Latino	“Mexican”
Brittany	White/white, Black	“I’m a quarter Black and the rest mostly white”
Dustin	White, Native American/Latino	“Hispanic”
Emily	Asian/Asian^a	“Asian”
Enrique	Latina, Native American/Latino	“Mixed race or by ethnicity”
Hope	White/Black	“My dad is Nigerian, so I’m essentially half-Nigerian”
Travis	White/Black, Native American	“I’m half-Black, because my dad is Black”
No racial elevator speech reported
Leena	White/Asian	NA
Paul	Latino, white/white, Latino^a	NA
Sophia	Latina, Black/Latino, white, Native^a	NA
Thomas	White/Latino	NA

Note. NA = not available.

Parents were racialized differently despite falling into the same racial and/or ethnic category.

Acknowledgements

“I thank Lisa Martinez for her invaluable guidance in the design and data collection phases of this project. I also thank others who have guided this research and provided extensive feedback including Jennifer Reich, Jessica Calarco, and Dina Okamoto. Finally, I am grateful to my participants, who willingly shared their moments of struggle, conflict, and joy.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by a University of Denver Partners in Scholarship Grant.”

ORCID iD

Monica Heilman

Notes

Author Biography

Monica Heilman is a PhD student at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests include race and ethnicity, multiraciality, whiteness, qualitative methodologies, and arts-based research.

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